Customer Reviews

African Suite

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you have fallen in love with Ibrahim's beautifully crafted, while at times down and funky soweto sound then you must hear this album. The strings fit incredibly well with the piano, adding a new dimension to the already spiritual experience of Abdullah Ibrahim's music.

A perfect album for unwinding with trance like and bewitching melodies. Bought this for a friend who sent me a note a few weeks later - "being lulled to sleep my Abdullah every night".

Buy it and tell your friends - why isn't this man more widely known ??

If Ellington, Gillespie and Mingus (and maybe a little Monk)could collaborate today, I think this is what you might hear. Lush, but never the least bit cumbersome, Ibrahim finds a way to make orchestration propel his themes rather than back them. Dynamics are especially spectacular. "Ishmael" in particular feels like some magic postscript of Gillespie's "Caravan" and Ravel's "Bolero." Cool stuff.

There are loads of folks out there who like the idea of jazz but can't really take too much of "the real thing". So they buy "lite" versions and brave the insults. You know what I mean. You know who I mean. Then there are those hard-core jazz lovers who like the real stuff, honks, squeaks and discord.

Abdullah Ibrahim somehow bridges those two camps. His music is always authentically jazz, yet never self-indulgent or listener-unfriendly.

There are some majestic pieces on this album - in particular Ishmael, which I first downloaded free through Real. It's an album you can live to or listen to equally. To maintain the integrity of my own star ratings, there aren't quite enough compellingly sublime moments to make it a straight five, but it's a firm four. Few people would find it anything less than a real pleasure.

This work reminds me of Mingus' "Let My Children Hear Music".
Breathtaking and vast in scope, it never wastes a note.
Here we have a meeting of great jazz chording with the experience, dissonant at times, with the landscape of the artists homeland.
The orchestral introductions never fail to lead the way they should.
I highly recommend this work.

In response to an earlier, more derogatory review...yes, this is not like Ibrahim's earlier works (which are more like "jazz"). So what? It's great stuff. Ibrahim's trio maintains the high quality jazz performance that we've come to expect from him, while the string orchestra provides new rich harmonic layers for him to work with. THis is very inspired music...furthermore, the two different worlds blend very well. It is not "a string orchestra playing with Abdullah Ibrahim's trio"...it is a large ensemble seamlessly melding styles into a beautifully crafted album.

It's often said that a good musician is born when the listeners identify two main components,Talent and Desire - usually a contradicting factor in evaluating a musician - this album just turn the missile back and shoots the critics dead!.Blessed with both Talent and Desire,Desire in my context meaning Vision, or being able to see how a piece with different arrangment takes place - Dr.Ibrahim has surely stunned us all.With the haunting begining of the first number "Mindif" to the Slightly Swinging "Ishmael" the thrill is all in this cd.He also performs a wonderfull rendition of Blanton (dedicated to the late bassist Jimmy Blanton of the Earlier Duke Ellington Orchestra).Highly Recommended.

I have loved Ibrahim's themes like 'The Wedding' and 'Ishmael' but they were jazz tunes. Here you can listen to a String Orchestra playing some rhythmless tunes . Where is jazz ?